MIT Press Open Access

The MIT Press has been a leader in open access book publishing for two decades, beginning in 1995 with the publication of William Mitchell's City of Bits, which appeared simultaneously in print and in a dynamic, open web edition. We support a variety of open access funding models for select books, including monographs, trade books, and textbooks.

The MIT Press is a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, and the arts. MIT Press books and journals are known for their intellectual daring, scholarly standards, and distinctive design.

Breadcrumb

David H. Guston

David Guston is Professor and Founding Director of the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, where he also serves as Codirector of the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes..

The original 1818 text of Mary Shelley's classic novel, with annotations and essays highlighting its scientific, ethical, and cautionary aspects.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has endured in the popular imagination for two hundred years. Begun as a ghost story by an intellectually and socially precocious eighteen-year-old author during a cold and rainy summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the dramatic tale of Victor Frankenstein and his stitched-together creature can be read as the ultimate parable of scientific hubris. Victor, “the modern Prometheus,” tried to do what he perhaps should have left to Nature: create life. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms—as a seminal example of romanticism or as a groundbreaking early work of science fiction—Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. In our era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and climate engineering, this edition of Frankenstein will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility.

This edition of Frankenstein pairs the original 1818 version of the manuscript—meticulously line-edited and amended by Charles E. Robinson, one of the world's preeminent authorities on the text—with annotations and essays by leading scholars exploring the social and ethical aspects of scientific creativity raised by this remarkable story. The result is a unique and accessible edition of one of the most thought-provoking and influential novels ever written.

Is there a crisis in the relations between research universities and the federal government? Is our system, which has been the most successful in the world, breaking down? The Fragile Contract brings together essays by scientists, university leaders, scholars, and seasoned science watchers from government agencies and nonprofit groups to address this issue. Neither advocacy nor polemic, it explores the social contexts for and influences on research in the university setting to encourage greater understanding of core issues by both politicians and scientists. The contributors offer concrete suggestions for building the foundation of a firmer contract that reflects current realities. The Fragile Contract appears at a time when congressional committees have openly questioned whether scientists are capable of policing fraud in their own ranks, and when fundamental agreements that have covered reimbursements to the universities throughout the post-World War II period have been called into question. It also addresses the problems of finding science after the Cold War and as well as the problems faced by universities in an international context. The Fragile Contract reveals that we are seeing not so much a crisis as a reflection of changing times: Neither science nor government is the same institution that it was when the modern social contract between the two was forged in the late 1940s. The authors agree that all parties must make major adjustments to the new environment, and research universities must become more active in promoting links to the local and national community.

Contributor

A critical exploration of today's global imperative to innovate, by champions, critics, and reformers of innovation.

Corporate executives, politicians, and school board leaders agree—Americans must innovate. Innovation experts fuel this demand with books and services that instruct aspiring innovators in best practices, personal habits, and workplace cultures for fostering innovation. But critics have begun to question the unceasing promotion of innovation, pointing out its gadget-centric shallowness, the lack of diversity among innovators, and the unequal distribution of innovation's burdens and rewards. Meanwhile, reformers work to make the training of innovators more inclusive and the outcomes of innovation more responsible. This book offers an overdue critical exploration of today's global imperative to innovate by bringing together innovation's champions, critics, and reformers in conversation.

The book presents an overview of innovator training, exploring the history, motivations, and philosophies of programs in private industry, universities, and government; offers a primer on critical innovation studies, with essays that historicize, contextualize, and problematize the drive to create innovators; and considers initiatives that seek to reform and reshape what it means to be an innovator.

The fourth edition of an authoritative overview, with all new chapters that capture the state of the art in a rapidly growing field.

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is a flourishing interdisciplinary field that examines the transformative power of science and technology to arrange and rearrange contemporary societies. The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field, reviewing current research and major theoretical and methodological approaches in a way that is accessible to both new and established scholars from a range of disciplines. This new edition, sponsored by the Society for Social Studies of Science, is the fourth in a series of volumes that have defined the field of STS. It features 36 chapters, each written for the fourth edition, that capture the state of the art in a rich and rapidly growing field. One especially notable development is the increasing integration of feminist, gender, and postcolonial studies into the body of STS knowledge.

The book covers methods and participatory practices in STS research; mechanisms by which knowledge, people, and societies are coproduced; the design, construction, and use of material devices and infrastructures; the organization and governance of science; and STS and societal challenges including aging, agriculture, security, disasters, environmental justice, and climate change.

A comprehensive and authoritative overview of current research, major theoretical perspectives, and new research directions in the study of science, technology, and society.

Science and Technology Studies is a flourishing interdisciplinary field that examines the creation, development, and consequences of science and technology in their cultural, historical, and social contexts. The New Handbook of Science and Technology Studies provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field, reviewing current research and major theoretical and methodological approaches and analyzing emergent issues in a form that is accessible to new and established scholars from a range of disciplines. Handbook chapters review the dominant theoretical perspectives of STS, present the current state of research on a spectrum of topics in the field, analyze changes brought about by the commercialization of science, study interactions between science and other institutions, examine the role of experts and the public in scientific and technological decision making, and consider the cultural and social dimensions of new technologies. The New Handbook of Science and Technology Studies is the third in a series of volumes sponsored by the Society for Social Studies of Science that have defined the field of Science and Technology Studies. It will be an essential resource for scholars in that field as well as for those in such neighboring disciplines as anthropology, history, philosophy, sociology, law, political science, feminist and critical theory, and literary studies.